Time to Worry About Ex-Chicago Cubs Bullpen Star Porter Hodge
This could end up looking extremely dumb, considering it’s not even March and I’m over thinking Porter Hodge is broken. The former Chicago Cubs bullpen star is coming off an injury-riddled 2025 season that ended with an overall poor year for Hodge. It’s kind of crazy to think just how bad things have gotten for the righty because it seemed like he was destined to be the next shut down closer for years to come. Now, it’s time worry.
Sure, it is only three spring training appearances, but there aren’t any signs of improvement coming from Hodge. These results obviously don’t matter at the end of the day, but you’d hope that Hodge would be able to correct some things and so far it’s a lot more of the same from 2025.
Last year Hodge only tossed 33 innings with the Cubs as he missed time on the injured list twice and was also demoted to Triple-A a couple times. The right-handed reliever posted a 6.27 ERA in 38 appearances. Hodge’s strikeout rate decreased by 4.5%, while his walk rate slightly increased from 11.6% to 12.2%.
The biggest difference was the quality of contact against him as opponents nearly tripled their barrel rate against Hodge in 2025 compared to his rookie season. He just couldn’t generate the same amount of whiffs and once batters were in good counts they crushed Hodge. After only giving up two home runs in 43 innings in 2024, Hodge served up nine home runs in 33 innings in 2025.
On Friday, Hodge pitched against the Cleveland Guardians and he couldn’t complete an inning out of the bullpen. Hodge was charged with five earned runs after giving up three hits and two walks. He did strike out two batters, but was taken out after throwing 29 pitches in the seventh inning.
Through two innings of work in three spring training games Hodge has walked seven, struck out five, while surrendering three hits and seven earned runs.
You just hate seeing all those walks.
Despite it not being March yet, at this point it’s a safe bet to say that Hodge is destined to begin the regular season at Triple-A with the Iowa Cubs. There are simply too many other intriguing options that the Cubs have brought in to overlook and given that Hodge has minor league options he’s an easy decision even if he becomes a fringe option once the regular season arrives. A shame. We’re talking about a guy who looked every bit of a star closer late in 2024, and now he’s battling to keep his name on the depth chart two years later.